By Evan Enden
“We lost a majority of our team, while this year's team maybe younger they seem to have more chemistry than last year's team,” Queens coach Frank Battaglia said.The Knights return two part-time players from last year's team, including starting catcher and captain Richard Yanatos. “Yanatos works very well with our pitching staff and we are hoping he will help us out with runs this year,” Battaglia said of his catcher, who is hoping to batting cleanup and hoping to fill the offensive void left by graduating the entire middle of the lineup last year.Vincent Miller is the leading hitter through the first eight games, batting .316. However just he and John Aluska (.304) are batting over .300 on a team that is hitting a meager .165.Rob Standish and Mike Morris will be the top two starters on the mound for Queens, while former John Adams star Nick Treppiedi has appeared in three games and has a 2.45 earned run average out of the bullpen. The Knights are 1-6-1 and have scored only 24 runs thus far. Queens went down to Georgia and were swept in three games by Armstrong Atlantic State and were outscored 40-3. “We are going to be as good as the effort we put forth,” Battaglia said. “We are going to have to scratch and crawl for everything this year. Nobody is expecting us to do much this year, so hopefully some teams will sleep on us a bit.” But in the team's first New York Collegiate Athletic Conference game of the year against Adelphi, the Knights showed some tenacity. After trailing for most of the game, Queens scored three runs in the seventh inning to take a 7-5 lead. But after surrendering three runs in the bottom of the eighth, the Knights trailed 8-7 and didn't get a chance to bat in the ninth due to darkness. “The boys showed a lot of resolve against Adelphi. We are a young team and we cannot afford to take anything lightly,” Battaglia said. “It's early in the season and our league is wide open.”On Saturday, Queens won its first game of the year, defeating Mercy 7-3 before the teams played to a 5-5 tie in a game called because of darkness.Reach intern Evan Enden by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 130.
